Blood Hunt (26 page)

The two new security guys were loud enough to wake the dead, so I heard them in plenty of time to duck out of sight until they were right there and then surprise them with the gorgon glare. Their tasers weren't even out of their holsters. I continued on down the stairs and through a door out onto a quiet room not in use. The lights were out, and it was completely dark. I could use the light app on my phone, but if anyone was watching security cameras, it would tell them right where to find me. Of course, it was also possible that ship had sailed. In the end, I used it, doing my best to shield the light with my hand. I didn't know what this room was used for regularly, but for now, it was empty, and I made my way to the door that luckily locked from the outside, and so I didn't have to go through the jumble of keys I'd taken off the security guards on the roof.

I pulled the door open just a sliver and looked out into the hallway, which was a helluva lot better lit than the room where I stood, but just as empty. I slid out, closing the door behind me as quietly as I could. It was crazy, I now realized, to have worried about whether my light would appear in the empty room. Now that I was in the brightly lit mezzanine that overlooked the main floor of gleaming white marble, I realized I stuck out like a sore thumb in my black track suit and sports bra. I had to get into a security shirt or a suit or whatever it was the reverend's lackeys wore if I wanted to be less conspicuous.

Luckily the mezzanine was designed like an arcade, like something that might have come out of a palazzio or manor from another time. It meant there were columns here and there to duck behind and…

My precog and the voices warned me that there was someone coming, and I quickly dashed behind the nearest column and up against the wall. My precog wasn't kicking like the danger was going to come flying at me at any moment, but more like spiders with zappy little taser feet were crawling all over my spine. Maybe it was an after effect of the actual taser blast, but…I didn't think so.

Even without an audience to project to, Reverend Smith's voice carried, echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “Well, of course, I'm always happy to meet with a true believer who wants to contribute significantly to the cause. It's just that there's so much to prepare before tonight. Other VIPs should start arriving any time now. Perhaps my assistant…”

His voice fell off as someone else spoke, this voice not meant to carry over crowded auditoriums, with or without microphones. I desperately wanted to know who he was talking with, but if I peeked out in time to see faces, they'd be able to see me as well. I was going to have to wait until they passed and hope I recognized the back of a head.

I was terrible at waiting. My leg wanted to thump impatiently, but I forced myself to stay still. To wait. As they passed, I edged around the column. I didn't recognize the woman walking with Reverend Smith. She was tall—nearly six-foot—with her black hair braided into many rows which were in turn interwoven. She wore black pants that fit her like gloves or, since that seemed a really terrible analogy, riding pants, and boots all the way to her knees. Her jacket came to points at the back, cinched in at the waist and broad at the top, either stylistically or because of a really impressive breadth of shoulders. She looked badass. For a moment, I thought of Hecate, but as far as I knew, she was still a statuesque block of stone, and anyway, if it had been her, the outfit would have been entirely of leather and her hair would have never have been tamed.

I whipped my phone out for a quick picture, thankful I'd silenced it so the totally unnecessary shutter-sound that designers kept to alert that a picture had been taken wouldn't give me away.

I quickly texted it to Hermes with a message,
Anyone recognize? When to the Orpheum?

I waited only a second for it to go through, cursing when again I got the
Send failed
message.
Tap to try again.
I knew it would be futile.

Plus, the reverend and the woman were getting away.

I slipped out, keeping behind columns as much as possible, but if they turned, they would see me. If there was any security still manning the cameras, they would see me. Unless chaos was on
my side
for a change…

The woman stopped in front of a closed door and opened it for the reverend, stepping aside to let him precede her. I tried to catch a glimpse inside, but her body blocked me. She scanned the hall before stepping in herself, and while I was half behind a column, I was also half out. She was going to see me. There was no way she wasn't going to see me.

Her gaze passed me right by, and she followed Reverend Smith into the room, closing the door behind her.

I blinked. There was no way I'd gotten that lucky.

There was also no way to see or hear what was going on in that room without giving myself away.

Still, my precog and my intuition—not that it was possible to separate them anymore—told me it was important. And Ian fit the profile of a large potential donor…or would if his accounts weren't frozen by the murder charges hanging over his head. There was no way he could think Reverend Smith would cement any kind of association with a killer. It would ruin him. Of course, there was no knowing what tale Ian would tell…or even if the reverend knew who he was dealing with. Maybe Ian could convince the reverend that his mother and father had been the ones possessed—the pot calling the kettle poltergeist. Of course, if he used one of the remaining Set coins, he might not need any story at all to influence the reverend.

It didn't really matter how things were set to go down. If Ian was in there, that was where I needed to be.

I dashed out and tried the door, but the tall woman had locked it behind her, which didn't bode well for the reverend. Reverend Smith wasn't one of my favorite people, but still…no one deserved to have their free will usurped, and the trouble he could wreak as an acolyte of the chaos god…

Something in that room thrummed against my head and plucked at my already abused nerves, causing them to jitter just like my entire body after the electrodes from the taser had struck. And so I missed the danger creeping up behind me until my upper body was slammed into the door and another body pressed in on me with all her weight.

Instinctively, my wings lashed out to throw her off, but the woman pinning me down gave no quarter, and they only half unfurled, crushed and trapped between us. I hoped they poked her at the very least, maybe even leaving unsightly bruises.

“Gotcha,” she said.

“I'm just here to see the reverend,” I said desperately. “About his prophecies.”

“Nice try, Ms. Karacis.”

I froze. I didn't know the voice, but it had the same exotic accent as Neith's. What in the unholy hells was going on?

She pushed my head against the door again, banging my skull against it, I supposed by way of knocking. The latch clicked and it gave way, revealing the woman I'd seen with Reverend Smith, only from the front this time. With her height and those boots, I had to look up to take in wide, prominent cheekbones, a flat nose, generous lips with just a touch of color. Her only other makeup, as far as I could tell, was the kohl lining her eyes. She was so striking and so regal, she could have stepped right out of one of the ancient Egyptian frescoes.

“Welcome,” she said, gesturing us in.

The woman who'd attacked had me by the hair and also with a hand around my throat. She pushed me inside and I let her for a moment, needing to get a handle on what I was facing. The door slammed and locked behind me, and I stared at two slabs…no, not slabs, long narrow tables of the kind brought out for trade shows and banquets but usually covered up by nice fabric table cloths. The only thing covering them at the moment was two bodies, both breathing, thank the gods.

Those
I recognized—Neith and the reverend. Wow, they'd worked fast. And standing at the reverend's head, pressing a coin right into the center of it, between his brows and into what I was fairly certain was one of the chakras, was Ian Roland. His hands were covered in blood up to the rolled-up sleeves of his white and blue oxford.

And it was clear enough whose blood that was. Neith had apparently opted for bounty-hunter black for the ambush at the museum, and it soaked up the blood pretty well, but there was no disguising the shine or the scent of fresh blood. Fiction always equated the smell with the copper of new pennies. An outdated notion now. To me it had the tang of an aptly named Bloody Mary. There was a bite to it. It nipped at the nose.

Either it or the menace in the room stood the hairs at the nape of my neck on end.

The woman who held me suddenly let go of my neck to frisk me for my phone. I took advantage of her one-handed hold to rip myself away from her, leaving some hair behind by its roots.

I spun, my wings flaring, stretching, glad to be freed, again like they had minds of their own. With Ian distracted by his victims, I glared down the two women, centering my weight in a fighting stance. The woman who'd held me had hair as free as the other's was controlled. It was bigger than mine even in the highest humidity. Nearly as big as Hecate's when it rose with her winds. Otherwise, the two could have been sisters. Very nearly twins.

And that clicked everything into place. There were only two sisters I knew of in our little tableau—Anat and Astarte. Sigyn had referred to them as Set's sister-wives. It occurred to me that she might have meant that literally. She'd sworn to their trustworthiness, insisted that they wouldn't want Set to get loose.

Neither my precog nor the fact that they hadn't stopped Ian suggested it to be the truth. Either Sigyn was sorely mistaken or she and her blood dial had sent me straight into their hands.

“Oh, that's cute,” the wild one said. “She wants to fight us.”

“She'll get her chance,” said the more-contained one, leaning against the door, but keeping her arms uncrossed, at the ready, in case the lock might not be enough. As though I'd just run.

“Anat? Astarte? Why are you doing this?” I asked…because everyone in the room with exception maybe of the two on the tables knew exactly what was going on but me. And when and if help arrived, I had to know who to trust. I had to know what the hells was happening.

The wild one laughed. “We were not meant for jailors; we were meant for war.”

“Yet wars have come and gone,” said the other. “Always and ever we have our fun, only to be called back to our duties.” She sneered. “To our
husband
.”

“But we have seen the signs.”

“Titans arisen, the plague demons awakened. Gods and dragons stirring.”

“If the Great War isn't upon us we will make it so,” the wild one said, her voice rising with her hands as she threw them into the air and whirled with the anticipated joy of battle.

“But—” I started.

“Just think,” said the braided one, who I decided to think of as Astarte, because they hadn't seen fit to introduce themselves, “the arguments over the signs and portents. The hysteria. The battles that will ensue.”

“The
Chaos
,” said the other, embracing it.

It hit me then right between the eyes. It was a wonder this plan hadn't hatched sooner. Chaos and battle—they went hand in hand, just like husbands and wives. Or did they? My mind argued with itself even as the thought occurred. Neith-Athena was a war goddess as well. The big kahuna of war goddesses, and she was pretty much the antithesis of chaos. She was about strategy, discipline, order and yes, the fighting sometimes needed to create or restore it. Anat and Astarte must have subscribed to this discipline once. Long enough to grow heartily sick of it. It had gotten them exactly nowhere. A dead-end job with no possibility of parole. And so they'd broken free.

It all made a horrible sense.

But there was one wife missing, and when I thought back to the battle with Set, I thought I knew why. “Tawaret,” I said. “She wouldn't go along with you, would she?”

“Tawaret,” Anat scoffed…or at least the one I'd decided was Anat. “So gentle. So useless. She was never even asked. She would have blown the whole thing.”

“And now,” said the other, tapping a finger against her lip contemplatively, “what shall we do with you until showtime?”

My mind was whirling.
Until showtime?
That implied
I was somehow part of the spectacle. What on earth did they have in mind? A gladiatorial battle? The old Christians versus the lions? I wondered which I was meant to be.

I readied myself, not about to go down without a fight, but there were two of them and one of me, and when I swung to fight the first, the other hit me hard in the back of the head and everything went dark.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I came to in the same room where I'd gone down, only instead of facing off with the warrior goddesses, I was practically eye to eye with someone a helluva lot scarier…at least at that moment.

Ian Roland.

I'd seen what he'd done to that woman back at the museum in Egypt. I'd seen the bodies of Mrs. Barbarosa and his parents, at least in my vision. And now I looked around wildly, hoping there was someone left behind to rein him in, but there was no one. Anat and Astarte, the reverend and even Neith, all gone.

I glanced back into Ian's psycho-eyes. “Alone at last,” he said. Then he licked his lips, very intentionally, and raked his gaze over me.

I yanked at my hands, tried to get my feet under me where I lay sprawled on the floor. My legs obeyed, but my arms were ziptied behind me. Ian let me get all the way into a sitting position before he knocked me back down, hand to my chest, keeping me there.

“You don't— You're not—” I started, realizing I was stuttering, showing fear. I didn't want to, but I knew from trying it with Richie that the gorgon glare couldn't penetrate crazy and possessed. That was one weapon down. But helplessness wasn't my real fear. It was those Set disks, being turned on those I loved. I did a quick rundown in my head. Neith had said there'd been half a dozen. Six disks. One for Victor, Jessica, Thalia, Neith and the reverend. They'd tried a disk on Iphigenia and maybe Sulis, possibly the same one on both. That was all the disks accounted for, right? Unless they'd done double-duty with one of the other disks.

But I didn't feel any different.

I must have crossed my eyes trying to see the top of my head. I'd have known immediately if someone had cracked open my chest. Ian laughed at my look.

“Oh, Tori… Can I call you Tori?” He didn't wait for me to respond. “We don't need to control you. You'll fight because you're a fighter and because, well, you'll see. It's not as though you'll have any choice.” His laugh was like a stampede of snakes slithering up my spine. “Best of all, I get to play with what's left of you.”

The hand holding me down was suddenly stroking, straight over to one nipple, which he grabbed and twisted. Pain shot through me, but it was nothing to the fear—not so much for myself. I'd fight whatever or whoever they intended for me to fight to the death if I had to before I'd leave anything behind for Ian to “play with”. The fear that swamped me was that even dying for the cause wouldn't be enough. Unless the others could figure out where to go and get here in time… Even then, with Neith and the reverend turned; Anat and Astarte traitors and no idea which side Sigyn played for… The deck was stacked against us.

I had to believe that at least Apollo and the others would find their way here. All had been there when Reverend Smith had spouted off. They'd heard me predict that if freed, Set would make an appearance. The revival meeting would have been advertised. Plus, Apollo still had his own oracular powers.

Ian's head jerked up suddenly, as if he'd heard a call evident only to him…maybe in his head, maybe through his link to Set.

“Showtime,” he said.

My heart squeezed.

He manhandled me to my feet and dragged me out of the room and down the hall to an elevator somewhere at the back where no one had bothered to turn on any lights. I went through and debated plans to break free. The gorgon glare might not work so well, but biting my cheek and spitting my paralytic blood in his eyes, or head butting the soft part of his neck or chin followed by a good stomp on his insoles… But he stayed behind me, holding tightly to my ziptied hands, making any moves difficult if not impossible to pull off.

He was taking me to the heart of the action. I was going to have to wait and watch for my moment.

I heard the reverend even before I could see him. His voice was amplified, but all of the speakers would be pointing out over the auditorium, not to the backstage and back hallways. So I couldn't make out the exact words, but the tone sounded the same—adamant, righteous, a call to spiritual arms.

Ian pushed me through a door, into a backstage area, where I could see Reverend Smith pacing the stage, using up every inch of it, his presence taking it over. Behind him, there had to be a giant screen or screens, because colors were flashing on the back of his thousand-dollar suit. Even my gaze was riveted on him as he spoke, fascinated, choking on his words but gulping them down all the same.

“‘…Another mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and a crown on each of his heads. With his tail he dragged a third of the stars out of the sky and threw them to earth.' Strange, horrifying and yet wondrous things, my friends, my faithful, because while it means the end, it is also the beginning. Those who've turned their faces away from God, away from his teaching, those who have not or will not renounce sin, will be left behind to suffer not just a world without His grace, but a taste of the torments that will plague them ever after in the dark place. That is Hell, my friends.” His voice rose and fell, sometimes dipping so quietly that the audience would have to strain forward to hear, sometimes rising to an almost physical level where it would knock them back in their seats. His congregation was as invested as though they were watching a favored sports team in sudden-death overtime.

“Mark my words,” he continued, his voice ominous as though there was peril in the alternative. “Before the night, week, month is through, you will see all this and more. ‘Locusts came down out of the smoke upon the earth, and they were given power like that of scorpions…they could harm only the men who did not have the mark of God's seal on their foreheads. The locusts were not allowed to kill these men, but only to torture them for five months… During the five months those men will seek death, but not find it; they will want to die, but death will flee from them.' If you love your husband, brother, son, cousin, neighbor, co-worker, you will bring them to me. They will renounce the Devil and all his works and embrace the Spirit. Later, there will be a laying on of hands, which will inspire you with the divine. Your words will be as His. Your spirit filled with the Holiest of Spirits.”

“Not long now,” Ian said in my ear, his breath hot like the forges of Hell the reverend conjured up. As I flinched away from it, I caught sight of figures on the other side of the stage—Anat, Astarte, and between them,
Neith
, her face gone feral. Her eyes burning with fervor as they looked on the reverend. Not Neith as I'd known her, in bounty-hunter black, her own insignia on her chest. She now stood dressed more like her Nike-Athena persona—in a longish gown of white with a blazing gold breastplate molded to her chest. In one hand she held a shield, and in another a sword of gleaming silver with golden etchings.

“But I do not expect you to take me at my word,” Reverend Smith went on, drawing my attention back to him. “God sent signs so the faithful should know him, so that they could prepare the way. You have seen some of them,” he said with supreme conference. Behind him the screens flickered, and I wondered if he was showing the footage again from the morning show. “But, after all, we are in the land of movie magic. Of special effects. I do not expect you to believe these screens.” At a dramatic toss of his hands into the air, the screens went dark. “I will show you your proof. The agents of the end walk among us. Angels and devils. Horsemen and hellbeasts. Behold, I present to you one of the agents of our torment and an angel of light.”

In an instant, Ian had snipped my ties and pushed me out onto the stage. On the other side, Neith came forth, sweeping her sword dramatically before her. No one had had to push her onto the stage. She came willingly, eagerly, now fixated on me rather than Reverend Smith.

There were gasps from the crowd, screams, voices raised in praise or prayer. I couldn't tell. It was all one big roar. I couldn't distinguish anything but the feeling buzzing in my head. Shock and horror. Apollo? He was here somewhere, I could sense it.

I called out to him mentally, stupidly, because he couldn't hear my words, only feelings. Right now my overarching feeling—because I refused to acknowledge fear, even though Neith, now linked to the god of chaos, stood before me armed to the teeth—was bafflement, particularly at the fear and awe rolling in from the audience in waves, so thick as to be tangible.

Actors always talked about the energy of a room. This was the first time I'd ever felt it. But why? Neith looked like an avenging angel, which might explain the awe, but I just looked like…me. I didn't even have my wings out, let alone any other aspects that might be considered beastly. Maybe they recognized me from the reverend's little film clips, but that still didn't explain…

In an instant, Neith was upon me, no longer wielding her sword for show but with deadly intent. I leapt back, out of the way, and something flapped behind me. Shocked, I whipped my head around, trying to see what was going on, what new threat might have snuck up, and caught sight of shadow wings.
Not mine.
And something else…a tail? A barbed tail, like a devil or…a scorpion. Like one of the locusts the reverend had described.

The lightbulb was just going off in my head when Neith's sword came down again and I dove to the ground, rolling and rolling as she slashed down a breath away from me. And again.

The Chaos Field.
Ian must have activated his amulet again, and just like with the heroes and villains on Hollywood Boulevard, I'd become the thing I was meant to represent, the beast everyone expected to see. Did that mean my tail was real? For now, at least?

I burst up out of my crouch as Neith closed on me, swinging again, and I called forth my real wings, not counting on the representations. I flapped furiously, needing to gain height, the relief of enough time and space to test out what I had at my disposal.

But I wasn't fast enough. Her sword caught me in the calf, laying it open, burning as though it really was made of holy fire. I swiped at the sky with my tail, surprised when it lashed forward at my command. I wondered if it really came with the stinging venom as described or whether that would be going too far. I couldn't count on it. I flapped hard, leading Neith on a chase from one side of the stage to the other as I reached down to my bleeding leg, nearly screamed at the pain as I slid my hand through the wound, covering it with blood. I arched my tail to bring the stinger in close and then coated it with the blood.

And then more blood burst out to join it as an arrow flew out of nowhere to pierce one of my wings. I arched back in pain and looked around wildly for where the danger was coming from now, and saw Anat coming out of the wings, bow in hand.

The crowd roared, cheered to see the side of “good” so easily defeating “evil”. And there was some kind of disruption out in the audience as well. I didn't know if it was more of Ian's chaos field or Apollo and any back-up he'd brought racing to action, but I hoped to hold out long enough to find out.

Astarte was coming from the wings as well, a spear or lance or some stick-like weapon with a sharp pointy end aimed my way.

Reverend Smith was chanting something or maybe narrating the whole thing for those in the cheap seats. I didn't think anyone could hear him over all the commotion, but if it kept him from attacking me too, I was all for it.

I flew at Neith as Astarte let her weapon fly, hoping to avoid it and if not take Neith down then at least engage so closely with her the others wouldn't risk firing at me. She blocked with her shield, swinging her sword wide to try to catch me on the back as I went hurtling into her, but my momentum was such that it brought us both crashing to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw others leap onto the stage—believers trying to pry me from their angel of light or reinforcements for me. I had Neith on the ground, pinned beneath her own shield as my weight pressed down on her. I had no idea what to do now. I'd slathered my tail in blood, but I didn't really want to turn her to stone. She wasn't herself. She was an ally. But still, I couldn't have her trying to kill me.

Action and chaos swirled all about us, but no one was pulling me away, by which I knew help had arrived and was keeping the faithful at bay. Neith herself, though, was doing her best to buck me off, snarling and spitting like a wild animal.

The entire stage shook beneath us, and at first I thought it was trembling from the weight of the believers storming the stage, but nearly as instantly, the fear of every La La Landian awoke in full force… Quake!

Either I jerked or the force of the shaking shifted me just enough that Neith could throw me aside, striking me on the temple with the sharp side of her shield as she rolled free. The pain was nothing next to the fear.

The reverend's voice rose above the quake, and I thought I heard him assuring everyone that this was one of the signs, one of the seals opening. “And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

That was supposed to
comfort
people?
I wondered.

My precog was kicking up like crazy. Crazier than it had ever gone before. My head spun not with the shaking or the cut to my temple, but with the warning klaxons jittering my very brain to the point where I thought it might turn to jelly.

This was no natural quake. No Biblical seal ripping open. But Reverend Smith had one thing right—this was in no way natural. This was Set, having gorged on the chaos and the force of the communal belief, finally breaking free.

This was a second coming, but not the one the reverend had foretold.

Before people could even get to their feet, they were crawling over each other to get wherever they perceived as safe…or maybe, to offer a less cynical approach, to take those last moments on earth to try to get out to rescue their loved ones. Others took cover under seats or stayed rooted in place, praying for the rapture. But some…most…swarmed toward the stage and the beacon of light offered by Neith.